safe & sound

hey everyone!

i made it safe and sound to the little village of torbeck on the south coast of haiti. i want to reiterate how thankful i am for the love and support you've all given me leading up to this trip. it was literally palpable today.

margaret anne graciously woke up at 4:45am this morning to drive me to dulles where i waited in a really long line to check my bags and get settled, making me just on time for my 7:45am flight!

as most of you know, my main concern was getting through customs with a cartel of children's medicine and enough medical equipment to start a small hospital. so, i prayed a short - but deep - prayer as i calmly claimed "no pharmaceuticals" on my immigration form as instructed by the orphanage and walked through the gate.

i wasn't so much as questioned and proceeded to find the driver sent by the orphanage outside the airport. where i come from, we call that God's grace.

he drove me to the second airport where my last flight was delayed. finally at 5pm haitian time, i got on the smallest plane i'd ever seen and buzzed over mountains of haitian landscape with 9 other passengers to les cayes where molly - the current medical volunteer - met me.

we had supper waiting for us here at the orphanage and the accomodations are incredibly generous. the cold shower felt wonderful and now i'm hanging out in the little volunteer compound called, 'the quad.'

also, there are 2 boys here for an eagle scout project and they are from stephen's city - a small town near front royal where i grew up. another man is here who lives and runs his non-profit "REACH" out of winchester, virginia. funny how small our world is.

tomorrow, molly is going to show me around the orphanage which is apparently over 100 acres of land, schools, housing, crops, etc. we'll be working in the clinic most days  but will probably explore the nearby village and beach some this weekend. i'm so grateful for her 'orientation' this next week!

i'll write more when i can and i hope everyone is well!

love,
jenny

ps - i got to hold a kitten that fit into the palm of my hand tonight. apparently, there is a cat who keeps having kittens in the quad :-)

This is the view of the clinic from the Guest House roof

home

after 18 hours of travel, inclusive of motorcycle, bus, taxi, and airplane i arrived safe and sound into dc late last night. my two triple girls, alison and mags met me with a wendy's chicken sandwich at 12am at reagan. both of them had to work eeeearly the next day. if that's not love, i don't know what is.

i really want to thank everyone for the love and prayers. i felt it in haiti and i'm fully convinced that it was your love and prayers that kept me safe and strong even now as i write this post from virginia.

i feel so blessed to have been able to bring that same love and prayer to haiti. to the little tifi with recently painted pink fingernails. it was awesome to be a conduit of something so powerful.

i hope you've enjoyed reading as much as i've enjoyed writing :-) i'll leave with my favorite prayer. it's something i spent a lot of time thinking about in haiti and i think it's incredibly relevant to the work i did and the work that still needs to be done there.

the serenity prayer:

God,

please grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change,
the courage to change the things i can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Amen.

voodoo and diazepam

last week ended well. the little tifi (which means "little girl" in creole - sorry i forgot to mention that in my last entry!) class tapered off on thursday and friday with nail care and hair accessories. in my defense, i had seen a lot of nail infections/finger-related issues last week in the clinic, so i justified my nailcare lesson with that. the hair - well - you should have just seen these little ladies prance around with hair ties, head bands, and clips. you would think i gave them each a million dollars. i have pictures, don't worry :-)

the weekend started off slow. i worked in the clinic computerizing medical records for most of the day on saturday and then helped out around the quad on saturday night until it was just about time to go to bed.

linda is peter's wife and who usually runs the guest house here. she had just arrived back in haiti from massachusetts on friday and she and i were getting ready to walk upstairs for bed when two boys showed up at our door saying one of their friends was sick. the clinic is not a 24 hour facility, so medical (and premedical) volunteers are pretty much it for all the children and surrounding people here at espwa if something comes up during the off hours (anytime other than 8-3pm monday through friday).

so, linda and i grabbed flashlights and walked over to the clinic. we round the bend and hear a lot of voices. there are close to 50 people all in pajamas crowded around the opening of the clinic. the boy is laying out on a bed, unconscious. linda and i walked over and i began to do the abc's like i was taught in high school during our emt course. all his vitals were normal and clear, but we couldn't get him to wake up. after trying all the usual remedies: pushing his nailbeds, pressure on the bottom of his feet, water, cold compresses, etc - we still couldn't get him to regain consciousness. the strange part was that when we pulled his arms up in the air and let them go, they would stay there instead of dropping like dead weight as you would expect. and the part that really got me was when i held his eyelids open his eyes rolled back into his head like something you'd see on the exorcist.

i asked all the questions. did he fall? did someone hit him? was he acting strange today? has he hit his head recently? anybody notice anything different at all? i got nothing.

so we took him to the hospital. on the way there, linda mentioned that sometimes weird things like this happen on saturday night because saturday night is the night for haitian voodoo ceremonies. she said this was the reason why so many people showed up and it explained their anxiety-driven reaction.

at midnight, we get to the hospital and on the way there, the kid wakes up. at this point, his eyes are open and he follows some commands like opening and closing his mouth and squeezing my hand, but he's not verbal. it was like he was a shell of a child, like there was no person inside. very hard to explain but he just seemed empty.

okay, get ready for some cultural medicine. the haitian doctor explains to me in broken english-creole that there is liquid in the boy's head that shifted to one side and they need to get it to come back to the other side. but, just in case he is 'developing a coma in his head,' (direct quote) they give him an injection of diazepam which is a neurological drug used to treat anxiety, insomnia, and seizure disorders.

no tests were done. even if i were fluent in haitian-creole, i don't know if i would have had words to use at this point.

so, we left the boy at the hospital to be monitored for the rest of the night. he returned to espwa the next day and apparently is doing quite well. i haven't had a conversation with him yet, but all seems to be well on the western front.

very interesting, i thought.

sunday we had mass and then a few volunteers here were driving to a local beach. they invited me to come along, so i jumped in. we drove to one of the most beautiful beaches i've ever seen. i definitely feel like i'm in the caribbean now. the water was that crazy blue that you really only see in crayola boxes and on cruise ships. we jumped off this rock into crystal clear warm water and hung out on the beach with tiny crabs and seashells. then, just at the end of the day, we watched a storm come in around the western side of the island. it came across the mountains, which literally dump off into the ocean. then it came across our little beach and you just saw the sheets of rain approaching your spot. we jumped under the covered area and let the breeze cool everything down.

i can't believe how fast the week is already going by. i'm leaving on thursday morning and tomorrow's already tuesday! i had a bit of a snag in my return transportation plans. the incountry flight i booked doesn't fly on the day i fly out of haiti for the us, so my options were either stay overnight in port-au-prince somewhere the day before my american airlines flight or take a 6 hour busride to port-au-prince on thursday. bus, it is! paige's boyfriend, wilson, is haitian and he was kind enough to offer to escort me so i don't have to travel across the country alone. i'm not sure about the safety in and around the capital right now and the bus will be a challenge enough, so i gladly took him up on his offer. i'll share my goldfish on the way there and offer to buy him lunch before we part ways.

i know i need to go back and think about jobs and medical school and my world. this has just been such a gift to have been able to work in haiti for the month. these kids are priceless. they're worth every sweaty day and every sleepless night. they're worth my frustration with the language and medical care. they're worth so much more than i can ever imagine. voodoo, diazepam, and all.

tifi selman

my girls health discussion group started monday and i had to switch gears a bit from what i thought i would be teaching. i planned for lessons with teenage girls around sexual health and safe relationships. however, seeing as most of the older girls went to visit family/friends over the summer break, really only the little ones are left behind. again, these little tifi are true orphans, many from the post-earthquake influx here in the southern part of the country.

they have more energy than you can possibly imagine and they are adorable.

we began our group with nine girls, one of the haitian teachers and myself in a circle. the teacher explained that they begin and end their groups with a prayer. so, i expected one of the girls to pray in creole and then for our lesson to begin. instead, two of the girls grabbed my hands and i watched all nine of them join hands, close their eyes real tight and begin to sing. it was seriously like the hoos down in hooville. from the smallest (age 4) to the tallest (age 14) they sang the most beautiful prayer i've ever heard. i couldn't even close my eyes; i couldn't stop watching them! it was a long prayer-song and i was amazed at the 4 and 5 year olds who knew every word.

they finished and proceeded to stare at me as if to say, okay what's next? then, we took turns each standing in the middle of the circle and saying our names, ages, and grade in school. after, everyone sat down and we started our lesson of the day.

monday's topic was dental hygiene. we talked about teeth and tongues and how to brush and when to brush and how long to brush. then, i asked for a volunteer to brush her teeth for the class. gelda, age 5, calmly walked to the front and declared that she would be my volunteer. i had a little toothbrush and i made the girls tell me how much toothpaste to use. then i asked the girls to help coach her on how to brush. we talked about circular motion and making sure to brush all sides of the teeth. after a few minutes, i hit a roadblock. i had know idea how to say "spit" in creole. oh dear. so, i held out the little bowl i brought and said "spit." gelda just looked at me with her little cheeks full of toothpaste. luckily, kids are quick. some of the older girls realized what i meant and i began to hear a chorus of "krache." gelda understood this and used my bowl accordingly.

then, i passed around paper and crayons and instructed the girls to color what they thought good dental hygiene was. i'm not show how much was lost in translation or in the girls having more preferable things to color, but i saw a spectrum of teeth, toothbrushes, flowers, people, and other indistinguishable drawings. after a while, we cleaned up our crayons and i took a picture of the kids holding their artwork.

these kids know digital cameras. so they descended on me like hawks, all wanting to see themselves in my camera. i'm proud to say that both my camera and myself made it out alive.

then we spent 20 minutes or so just playing games. i let the girls decide what to play and learned how to play "sable, dlo" which means "sand, water" and you draw a line down the middle of the room. one side is sand and the other is water. you have one person who shouts out either sand or water, quickly and you have to jump onto either side. the person can repeat or change up and you have to think fast. if you jump to the wrong side, you're out. i did not win. these little girls are good. we finished cleaning up and then got back in our circle for the ending song-prayer. then, i walked them back to their house in the village here at espwa and told them, 'ademe' - i'll you tomorrow!

tuesday and wednesday followed the same suit with the girls focusing on food hygiene, handwashing, and body hygiene. we had a volunteer wash their hands using soap, clean water, and making sure to wash all surfaces including forearms and fingernails :-) today we had a volunteer take a pretend shower. this meant that she stood in the front of the room and the girls took turns telling her what parts of her body she had to wash. it took a while, but we even had someone tell her to wash behind her ears.

we're using a classroom in one of the schools and it's a basic building with no windows or doors, just openings for the air to flow through. this means we have many tigason (little boys) who are inquisitive and want to break into the girls only group. and that is why the title of this entry is 'tifi selman.' this is the phrase i have used more than any other this week. tifi selman! tifi selman! every time one of those pesky little boys tries to break into my girls group. somehow i think that tendency to be onery does not change when they get older.

in any case, i'm trying more than ever to understand the language and to be able to communicate with the girls. i have one of the young boys who has been helping me translate and will have paige help translate next week when we talk about more sensitive girl issues.

but on the whole, i am learning that there are so many different ways to communicate. touch is huge. they hold my hands and give me kisses and just hang on. i try to reinforce them by holding them and just listening to what they say even when i don't understand. if they remember nothing from the lessons, i will still count the whole thing as gain.

tomorrow we're going to learn how to cut our nails and if i can get into town in the morning, i will buy some nail polish and we'll have a girly afternoon. friday is going to be more of a funday and we're going to talk about shampooing hair. i found a bunch of hair stuff, so we're going to get into pairs and do each other's hair.

i realize hair and nails are a bit of a stretch for strict public health lessons, but i'm really excited for them.

i was helping some other volunteers today with a documentary they are doing and in the interview one of the guys, chris, asked me why i'm here, what motivates me, and how this work interfaces with my own personal faith.

doing the nails of 8 year old haitian girls is my answer his questions.

applying nail polish is not a life-saving feat. it does not nourish the appetite. it does not quench thirst. it does not solve problems. it does not cure disease.

but, the act of putting nail polish on the little grimy hands of these tifi here shows them and everyone else that someone thinks they mean something. someone values and respects who they are, not what they can do or give. someone thinks they are important just because they exist. each one, individually.

as much as it exhausts me, it is a privilege to be able to be here and to do this work.

to celebrate love

miss constante, one of the nurses in the clinic invited me to her sister's wedding which was scheduled last night, but there were not other american volunteers going, so i'd be on my own. but, after attending my third funeral in less than 3 weeks yesterday, i decided it was high time for something happy. so, i jumped in the car with one of the haitian guys who works for espwa and speaks a little bit of english and set out for a haitian wedding.

it was beautiful. set in a small white church at dusk with lots of flowers and an amazing musical selection. they had a complete high mass (i think everyone except for me is catholic here in haiti) and the bride was gorgeous. we went to the reception at someone's house and had drinks, rice, beans, and plantains (which i could eat every single day). they played tropical music and had traditional haitian dances. i came home just in time for the evening rain shower. peter (who is sort of the innkeeper/volunteer coordinator right now) was waiting up to make sure i got home okay. he said he called my mom to tell her i ran off to get married (he has 3 grown daughters, so i think he's extra good at giving his girl volunteers a hard time :-)

it was just so nice to hang out with some of the folks who work at espwa in a social setting. i sat at a table with 3 of the men who work with the kids. i've never seen a more dedicated staff of older male figures nurturing, disciplining, and caring for each of the 800 children who walks through espwa's doors. they have huge hearts. and last night they were telling me that after the series of sad events, i needed to get out and see haiti. because if i don't, i won't want to be back.

i bought a bottle of wine in the city yesterday when peter went into town to get supplies so i would have a gift for the wedding. when i got to the reception, i asked renault - one of the men in charge of espwa (and attendees at the wedding) where the gift table was located or if there was a certain tradition of gift giving. he gave me a quizzical look and said, 'that is not important here.' of course i gave it anyway, but that comment really struck me.

i think maybe it's because people don't have much to give, but the ramifications of that is actually quite beautiful. because, now the event is not about where the couple is registered, or their new apartment/condo/home, or where they are going on their honeymoon. it becomes about the marriage. people come to support a couple in their committment to each other. they come to watch a sacrament take place. they come to share a meal. they come to celebrate love.

i think that's pretty cool and it's a lesson i'll take with me when i leave haiti.

coolness of laplis

yesterday, just before i left the clinic, doctor baptiste pulled me aside. he said he was planning to arrive at 8am this morning for a "minor surgery" and i was welcome to come assist or i could meet him to see the rest of the patients at 9am. I told him I'd see him at 8. (disclaimer: if you don't like hearing about blood and guts, skip down to the sentence that says, "what a day in the clinic" and read from there :-)

the "minor surgery" was a lipoma (benign tumor comprised of fatty tissue) the size of a softball on the back of this man's head. so, we got to work. we prepped the area and sterilized as much as possible (the sterilization here is a whole different story). dr. baptiste numbed the area locally with lidocaine and then made his first incision. i held the skin up with tweezers and tried to dab as much blood as possible away from his work. i held the clamps when he finally found the artery that was causing said blood flow. the tissue, while soft, was very dense and it took a lot of cutting and chopping to get it into managable lumps to extract. when dr. jacob was finished with an area, he would tell me to "pass my finger through" the wound to feel if there was additional pieces of the tumor that he left behind. you may think me sick, but this was so freaking cool. i found a few and figured out the creole words for needle, sutures, clamps, and tweezers. gauze and lidocaine are thankfully the same in both languages.

the interesting part came when we were about halfway through the surgery and the electricity went out. this mean that there was much less light and all the fans quit circulating the precious air. it teetered around 105 degrees outside with the breeze, so i don't even want to know what it was in the crowded clinic. we were sweating bullets and trying to work as fast as possible. the wound began to bleed profusely because dr. baptiste nicked another artery deep enough so as to prevent further clamping. so we packed the wound with gauze, hoping the compression would stop the bleeding long enough for us to finish. this allowed us a short break just as i was beginning to get tunnel vision. i felt like i was in an episode of M*A*S*H.

this man was the perfect patient. he let dr. baptiste know when the anesthetic was wearing off and i would prep the needle for him to insert - as we're 2 inches deep into his head, nonetheless. all in all, it took us about 3 hours to perform what dr. baptiste thought would be a 45 minute procedure. dr. baptiste sutured him up (not before telling me that next time it would be my turn to suture), we put a compression bandage on him and sent him home with antibiotics. father marc took some photos of the surgery, so if you're extra curious, feel free to check out his blog (http://pwojeespwa.blogspot.com/) in the next few days. i've still yet to figure out a way to upload photos, but his blog is chock full of them!

after lunch, i came back to see more patients with dr. jacob. we saw lots of babies with fungal skin infections from contaminated water and poor hygiene. we saw older people with anemia, malaria, high blood pressure. we saw children with parasitic stomach infections and respiratory infections. the last patient of the day was the most heartbreaking. she is 41 and her youngest child is 6 years old. dr. baptiste diagnosed her with a skin infection and noted that she had suffered from a variety of skin infections previously and complained of aches and pains all over. he told her he would like to do a rapid HIV test and she complied. the test read positive which means that not only does she have HIV, but her child probably does as well. the good news - if there is good news at this point - is that there are free HIV counseling, prescription, and clinical services in the nearby town of  les cayes.

what a day in the clinic.

i came back to the quad just in time to see a huge performance done by the kids for the large group of visitors. they called it a spectack and it included haitian hip-hop numbers as well as traditional folks dances and songs. it was simply amazing. the drumming was astounding and the way the kids knew exactly how to dance to the beat of the drums and when to chant acapella-style was incredible.

i've been trying to make friends with the little girls here because the recent events and the lack of 'school-like structure' have slowed my attempt at an all girls group. so, there was an itty-bitty girl standing next to me and i knew she couldn't see the show because she barely came up to my knee. so i held my hands out and said, "ou we li?" which i think means, "you see it?" even at her age, she probably speaks better creole than me, but she grinned and jumped into my arms anyway. i was thinking, it's hot and i'm sure she'll squirm away soon. but oh no. that little thing played with my hair and danced in my arms and after a couple of hip-switches and 4 more songs, she even tried to come home with me. so, if you see a small haitian child in richmond this fall, you'll know how to connect the dots.

this evening, just before dark, i decided to walk to the basketball hoop and check out a potential running route for the mornings. so pretty soon i was trailing 5 small children and 4 more were running behind me to catch up, all headed for the court. we watched the boys play basketball (one of the catholic boys here is a 6'6" basketball coach in southern california, so he was having a hay-day). and the haitian boys were still beating him, 1 foot shorter and 2 shoes less.

i was sitting on the sidelines with the younger ones when you hear the familiar "shhhh" sound. we literally saw the rain crossing the valley at the foot of the mountains. all of the children got up and started shouting, "laplis! laplis!" (rain! rain!) and we ran as fast as we could away from the approaching storm. we ran through the mango trees and down the dirt path. through the cow pasture and quanset hut where the children eat their meals. just about then, we began to feel the drops. pretty soon we were drenched and running through mud, shoeless and careless.

so, yeah, i think that's a good way to describe today. running through a lot of mud, but feeling the coolness of the rain anyway.

black dresses and water balloons

the other medical volunteer, molly, left early thursday morning. i really am going to miss her even though we only spent a week together. i think it's because we shared a room and worked in the clinic all day and both liked gin rummy (i even learned how to play cribbage!). she let me use her fan and gave me the rest of her luna bars so that probably means we'll  be friends for life. :-) i am planning on visiting her (and the university of minnesota medical school) next year sometime.
the night before she left, a huge group of folks from a particularly well-off parish in orange county, california came to stay at espwa. they are very nice and i think this trip puts most of them wayyyy outside their comfort zones - which is great. we don't seem to have much in common, but i'm trying to be as welcoming and friendly as possible. some of them are young, still in high school even, and i think this trip will do a lot of good things for their perspectives moving forward.

the group doesn't have a project per-se, so they've picked up some odd jobs and used their skills where they can. they've also taken a lot of initiative to play with the kids which has given me a nice break. i am physically, mentally, and emotionally tired this weekend, so i'm taking the afternoon to write here and study a bit for the mcat. i also took a nap and had a coke (we have the old-fashioned glass bottle coke :-)

unfortunately, i had the experience of going to a haitian funeral yesterday. one of the teachers here at espwa died after battling a long "stomach illness" - from what we were told. that could be a lot of different things here and was probably some sort of infection. she was young and engaged to another espwa worker. we drove about an hour on bumpy, dusty gravel roads (i am so so so grateful that i don't suffer from motion sickness; i simply wouldn't survive here). pulling in front of a little church with a tarp hoisted by bamboo in front of it, we were the first - and last - white folks to arrive. we were escorted up to look at the open casket, as per custom, and greet the family. everyone was dressed to their absolute best with a 50/50 mix of black and white apparel and heels and hats. it was about 167 degrees in the church and the service included a few different choirs singing as well as various prayers and a very long sermon.

the most interesting and sad part about it was watching the way the haitian culture uniquely expresses grief. men are stoic (as in most cultures), while the women not only cry, but scream and sometimes fall the floor in convusions and have to be carried out. it was quite something to watch and sometimes i felt like shouldn't have been watching. and yet, i felt very honored and blessed to have been able to validate the grief of the people who work here at espwa and stand in their support.

paige - one of the fulltime espwa staff members - is 27 so she had an extra black dress that fit me well, thankfully. i guess when you come to places like this, you should be prepared for events like these.

on a lighter note, i finished 5 creole lessons this week and i really think i'm beginning to understand bits and pieces of this language. i understand the theory behind it now, sentence structure and how to make past, present and future tenses. the kids continue to amaze me with their ingenuity, strength, and love. the older ones care for the younger ones and there is such a strong sense of family here that you cannot help but feel included. i step outside and at least 3 kids grab my hand, arm, shirt, whatever they can. they like to ask questions and are completely patient with me as i try to understand what they are saying. even if i never get their questions, they are still happy to just be around me.

be certain though, they are still boys. i regularly get marriage proposals from the older boys and today i got pelted so hard by a water balloon by the younger boys that i believe my underwear are still wet.